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Brad Pitt — Glourious Basterd (sic)

All the Pitt that’s Fit to Print / Dustin Rowles

Trade News | October 21, 2008 | Comments (42)

There’s a lot of unspoken chatter out there in Pajiba-world, but I hear it. I hear it in my soul. You’re all asking, “Hey Dustin, so what’s going on with Brad Pitt these days?” Oh, well, I’m glad you asked, dear readers. I just happen to have an answer for you.

In addition to his upcoming movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which has enough buzz to make Pitt an Oscar frontrunner, Pitt has also recently signed on to star in an adaption of The Odyssey. Set in outer space. Pitt — who also starred in Troy, an adaption of Homer’s other classic work, The Iliad — will play Odysseus, as he travels home after the Trojan War and battles armies and mythic creatures such as the Cyclops and the deadly Sirens. In space. George Miller (Happy Feet, Mad Max) will direct. Did I mention it was going to take place in space?

But Dustin, you ask. Surely that’s not all that Pitt is working on. How is he supposed to support all eleventy billion of those children and create legitimate excuses to get away from his wife ole’ lady. Well, he’s also just signed on to play the lead in a cinematic adaptation of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, based on Michael Lewis’s non-fiction novel. Did I mention it was a novel about sabermetrics? For those unfamiliar with that term, it’s the analysis of baseball through the use of baseball statistics. Sounds like an awesome film, right? Who doesn’t want to see a movie about a manager, Billy Beane (Pitt), who got over 100 wins out of an underfinanced Oakland As? Gawd, that sounds exciting, doesn’t it? You know what’d make a movie about sabermetrics even more exciting? Outer space! Steven Zallian (American Gangster, Gangs of New York) will pen the screenplay and David Frankel (Marley and Me, The Devil Wears Prada) will direct.

OK. OK. So, that’s what Pitt is doing in the future. But what’s he doing now? Oh, glad you asked. He’s currently filming Inglourious Basterds (sic), Quentin Tarantino’s next film, which also stars Mike Meyers. But who cares about Mike Meyers? Nobody. That’s who. This post is about Brad Pitt, godamnit. And here’s a purty picture of Pitt, as Lt. Aldo Raine.


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(Image courtesy Agent Bedhead)


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Comments

He's an architectural historian/photographer too.

Posted by: twig at October 21, 2008 11:09 AM

Point of fact; He and Ms.Jolie are not actually married. The reason is ostensibly that they won't marry until everyone can marry (they are gay marriage advocates) but I suspect the real reason is that Jolie's track record with marriages is not so hot.

There can never be too much Brad Pitt, he is aging VERY well. Like a fine wine, that one.

Posted by: Genny (also Rusty) at October 21, 2008 11:13 AM

Did I mention it was a novel about sabermetrics? For those unfamiliar with that term, it's the analysis of baseball through the use of baseball statistics.

Fantasy baseball nerds everywhere just collectively busted all over their homemade scorebooks.
"Oh yeah baby...tell me how my set-up man's fly ball percentage feels on your defense-independent pitching statistics."

When can we expected a production of Triangle Offense: The Art of Winning Basketball Games with Geometry starring Tom Selleck as Phil Jackson?

Posted by: branded at October 21, 2008 11:17 AM

The Odyssey in space? Blasphemy! I call shenanigans, shenanigans!

Posted by: Pants at October 21, 2008 11:25 AM

branded, the Tom Selleck cake says hello.

Posted by: twig at October 21, 2008 11:36 AM

Mr. Pitt has lost alot of standing with the my lady friends down here in the bible belt. (You know, homewreckerism and all).

I, however, believe that he is a talented actor who will one day be standing with an Oscar in his hand (which he already should have for either Fight Club or Snatch). AND he's absolutely beautiful and causes me to swoon.

But space? really? hmm... Troy was a big stinker. You'd think he would have learnt his lesson.

Posted by: wsapnin at October 21, 2008 11:36 AM

Re: the whole The Odyssey in space thing, I've actually seen it done before, in a bizarre 80s French animated series that ran constantly on Polish TV during my childhood (along with the awesome Les Mondes Engloutis).

Behold: http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4c1X5ene8

Posted by: greebo at October 21, 2008 11:38 AM

The reason is ostensibly that they won't marry until everyone can marry (they are gay marriage advocates) - yes but...they've already both been married so...whatev.

Posted by: amanda at October 21, 2008 11:38 AM

I'm not a fantasy baseball nerd (never have participated in any fantasy sport of any kind) but Moneyball is one of my favorite non-fiction books of all time. And I can see how this can be a compelling story given that Billy Beane's methodology was so unorthodox in the history of major league baseball. All Beane cared about was on-base percentage and ground ball pitchers, with no regard to defense. He made the A's consistent playoff contenders with the lowest payroll in baseball. (or one of the lowest, I'm not looking it up)

His personal story is probably going to be the basis of the movie, though. He was a very promising prospect in his younger days, but he choked when he made it. Been done before, yeah, but I'll be first in line.

And there's a whole chapter devoted to the concept of the error. I was in heaven. I was assigned an excerpt of the book about statistical regression for a statistics class that was the absolute worst part of my master's program. Although I never learned the mathmatical part, I immediately read the entire book in one day. If there are any other baseball nerds out there who haven't read it yet, do so now.

Posted by: Austin at October 21, 2008 11:39 AM

And although Troy is a bit of a stinker, all the men in it are exceedingly hot. I can distinctly remember saying to my friend, right after we saw this in the cinema, "This movie was completely made for women and gay men."

I keep it hidden like porn.

Posted by: amanda at October 21, 2008 11:40 AM

Hrmm... The Odyssey in space, eh?

I dunno, the Coen Brothers sure as hell made the Odyssey work in Depression Era Mississippi, so maybe Brad Pitt and George Miller can make it work in outer space.

I love the Odyssey, I love outer space (in fact, I have space traveler experience, given that I can see the moon from my house and all), I love the first two Mad Max movies, and I'm a Brad Pitt fan. So... I'm game.

Let's do this.

Posted by: ajax19 at October 21, 2008 11:41 AM

"I keep it hidden like porn."

Although I actually genuinely enjoyed Troy, Amanda, if that's your feeling on it, then I have two words for you: "Blu Ray"

Trust me.

Posted by: TK at October 21, 2008 11:47 AM

Brad Pitt is the hottest mouth breather I've ever seen.

Posted by: Sofía at October 21, 2008 11:55 AM

Well I liked Troy, and if they can get hot naked men on a, ahem, space odyssey, give it to me!

Every time now that I've seen the title "Inglorious Basterds" it makes me think of this and it's spelling of bastert. I can't control it.

Posted by: Sabrina at October 21, 2008 12:03 PM

I've been confusing Troy and Alexander in my head. I know the difference between the stories but I thought Jared Leto was Brad Pitt's submissive boytoy in Troy, of course it was Alexander. That was the gayest movie I have ever seen! It didn't really do it for me though. Maybe if they had replaced Leto with Ray Stevenson...

(Fun fact: I forgot Jared Leto's name so I googled "actor eyeliner" and his name came up in the second entry. He's such a girl!

Posted by: Pants at October 21, 2008 12:04 PM

Is it wrong that I find Mr. Pitt ridiculously attractive in Fight Club? I have friends who think I am insane for this.

Troy is so historically inaccurate I almost can not re-watch it. But there is all the pretty. Amanda, you are 110% correct in your assessment of the movie.

My favorite movies of his are still A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall. Both make me cry, but damn it all I love them so.

Posted by: Melody at October 21, 2008 12:07 PM

I ping a solid indifferent-to-vaguely-positive reading on the Pitt Scale®. He has yet to do anything that makes me angry. This is rare.

Also, he and his family are crazy pretty. I am a fan of pretty in any context.

Posted by: firedmyass at October 21, 2008 12:08 PM

Is it wrong that I find Mr. Pitt ridiculously attractive in Fight Club? I have friends who think I am insane for this.

I can confirm that they are the insane ones. What kind of crazy person didn't think Brad Pitt was the hottie boombalottie in Fight Club?

Posted by: Sabrina at October 21, 2008 12:14 PM

Yeah, uh, didn't Stanley Kubrick already make that movie a billion years ago?

Posted by: Jay at October 21, 2008 12:20 PM

Brad Pitt was HOOOOOOOOOOOTTTT in Fight Club!!!! I think it's my favorite Pitt look.

Posted by: Sofía at October 21, 2008 12:25 PM

Oh and all true connoisseurs know that the best Pitt look was "Johnny Suede".

Posted by: Jay at October 21, 2008 12:30 PM

The Odyssey in space? Ilium and Olympos spring to mind by Dan Simmons since Alexandra and I rambled up a storm about it a few days ago on a thread.

Ah Billy Beane . . . you gave me hope for a few years for my Athletics until I officially gave up on baseball. What Billy Beane did was absolutely necessary given the conditions of his team, but also highlighted the things that made baseball a very very broken sport. If your team is perennially thirty games under .500, it is possible to still watch them, to hope for the day when they will put it all together and beat the fucking Yankees. You can gripe about the broken system without quite losing your soul.

The A's though . . . well the long story short for those who weren't bay area sports fans during the late nineties, early 2000s. The A's have a tightwad owner and a small market, which combines to give them close to the lowest payroll in baseball. We're talking so low that their entire team combined makes about twice as much as A-Rod does on the Yankees. Billy Beane engineered an approach that managed to win anyway by focusing everything on developing players from within and picking up aging veterans and journeymen for ten cents on the dollar who never really fit in anywhere else, but had something specific they could bring to the team.

Not exactly rocket science, but if you can pull it off you can build some great teams. And they did, making the playoffs for something like 5 straight years (and losing everytime in 5 games in the first round).

The problem with the approach is that you can't keep any of the players you develop. Between around 1999 and 2005, A's fans watched 3 MVPs and 2 Cy-Young Award winners leave in free agency when the team didn't even make an offer. Imagine Belichik's Patriots (similar approach really), except that Brady left after 2002 because the team wouldn't pay him market value, they never brought in Moss because they won't pay for marquee free agents . . . and on and on. What do you have? A team best known as a farm team for the Yankees and Red Sox.

That was my final straw for baseball. I won't watch a game that is rigged. I'm all for sticking by your team (I still get pissed when my 49ers lose and I don't think they've won half their games in going on a decade now), and I would be more than happy to root for the A's losing right now. But it's what happens after the season that kills you. I'm supposed to root for the A's when the guy that won the MVP last year is on the Red Sox and the guy that won the Cy Young the year before is on the Braves. Screw that.

I won't stick around and root for a clearly rigged and broken system. Baseball is set up such that the smaller market teams cannot compete financially with the big market teams. Look up the total salaries of NFL teams vs. MLB teams sometime. The range on the NFL for 2007 was $75 Million to $123 Million. The range on MLB for 2008 was $22 Million to $210 Million. Are you fucking kidding? Until I looked it up I didn't know it was that cut and dry. The Yankees literally spent $10 for every dollar the Marlins spent.

And I know exactly what you're thinking. "The Yankees didn't make the playoffs, but the Rays spent a fifth the money and they're going to the World Series." Exactly, that is what proves my point. How popular do you think baseball is going to be in Tampa two years from now when the entire current starting line up is playing in Boston and New York?

Posted by: stipe42 at October 21, 2008 12:41 PM

In general, I think that remaking classic Greek lit is a bad idea. But Miller is pretty much a genius, so I am cautiously optimistic. The Moneyball movie seems like a bad idea on the surface, but the screenwriter is good and the director seems capable, so who knows. And Tarantino is just plain the shit. Pitt is using his Hollywood currency pretty well it seems, hooking up with quality moviemakers. Tom Cruise was the absolute best at this until he went all loony (take a look at the directors he's worked with; its quite an all stars list). It looks like Bradley was taking notes.

Posted by: Ed Newman at October 21, 2008 1:18 PM

He's pretty and that's all that matters. Also his wife/baby momma/whatever is one of the few women I'd switch teams for. So...3some? Oh and yeah, Fight Club was his best look with the incredible body, all sweaty and bloody with that cigarette...I...need a moment alone now.

Posted by: Joker at October 21, 2008 1:33 PM

In that photo, he looks like he's practising the Tribiani method.

Yeah, he was hot as all fuck in Fight Club. I've yet to be convinced he has much range, though. He's mostly fine, but anytime he has to be angry/upset, he's unconvincing. It's like he's too much of a stoner to get really mad....

Posted by: Tarn at October 21, 2008 1:38 PM

ajax19, your space experience comment nearly made me spit out my diet coke with splenda (it's like drinking dessert!). Genius. Do I smell a VP run in your future?

And, to the several other commenters, Brad Pitt in Fight Club is definitely hot. My friend and I share an (sick? twisted? perverted? sure) attraction to men who are injured. Blood and bruises just do it for us. I gotta go, my therapist is calling.

Posted by: Puregonzo at October 21, 2008 2:25 PM

The fact that I own Fight Club, Seven, Snatch, and 12 Monkeys often makes my friends wonder if I have a little man-crush.

The answer is: YES.

Posted by: Macafee at October 21, 2008 2:25 PM

Didn't use to think much of The Pitt. Then one lazy laundry day two years ago I was flipping through the channels and saw Susan Sarandon's mug and thought "She's cool, and this looks unfamiliar. Let's try it." It was Thelma and Louise, which I had never seen. It changed my life, and not in a girl power way.

Now every time I see BP a mental image of him cut like flint, grinning in a dirty pair of jeans superimposes itself over his pic and then I forget to finish my pajiba post for an hour.

What were we talking about?

Posted by: that bees chick at October 21, 2008 2:28 PM

Fighters? Hot. Brad Pitt? Hot. Beaten up angry Pitt? Hot. Pitt with his 17-gajillion kids? Hot. With guns and awesome weaponry in Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Smokin' Hot.

Why yes, I may have some issues...Thanks for asking.

Posted by: Melody at October 21, 2008 2:32 PM

Sabrina, your link to the ytmnd "Loser" letter was hysterical! Two of my co-workers had to ask it I was okay because I was laughing so hard I was crying. Bastert indeed.

Posted by: abijah at October 21, 2008 2:59 PM

I loved the book Moneyball too. I'm am intrigued by the idea of making this into a movie and also somewhat horrified at what they might do to the book. I don't know, I think I'd rather see them profile some of the actual players discussed in the book, rather than have them portrayed by actors. The more I think about it, how the hell is this going to work?

Posted by: tamatha at October 21, 2008 3:08 PM

B.P.
Make my bean go fling fling!
A.J.
Make my bean go night night!
Su-shi

Posted by: sushi at October 21, 2008 3:10 PM

Oh, come the fuck ON!

Troy was a fantastic movie, but fuck it, Brad Pitt and his brilliant acting method of Looking Into the Distance With a Pout and Frown completely pales next to the utter hotness of
Eric Bana and Sean Bean. If ANYONE is meant to play Odysseus it should be Sean Bean, DAMNIT!

I've never, ever found anything slightly attractive about Brad Pitt. He can be a great actor in the right roles but oh my God, he's so bland and pretty and I can't stand it.

That being said, we should totally add Troy to the Pajibacon watching list. It has Brian Cox! and everyone knows he makes everything awesome! Plus, the aforementioned mancandy. Amanda's right, that movie was MADE for women and gay men...And TK.

Posted by: figgy at October 21, 2008 3:13 PM

Pitt isn't aging as well as I'd hoped. He's no Clooney. That man...he'll be hot when he's 80.

Posted by: tt_marie at October 21, 2008 3:24 PM

Mmmm Pretty. Pitt/Leto: Moist.
That is all.

Posted by: Lindsey at October 21, 2008 4:19 PM

that bees chick: I was lucky enough to see Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise when it came out and because of that he has always had a warm place in my heart and always will.

Posted by: Lilly at October 21, 2008 6:01 PM

I always kinda wished HBO would pick up The Iliad/Odyssey/Aeneid in a mini-series somehow. Maybe even all of them, in that order. Ian McShane would make a sick Zeus/Jupiter.

Posted by: Benny at October 21, 2008 6:09 PM

Billy Beane was/is the A's GENERAL manager.

Posted by: bucdaddy at October 21, 2008 10:12 PM

I always said, if I had to fuck a guy, I mean had to, if my life depended on it, I'd fuck Brad Pitt.

Posted by: AmbroseKalifornia at October 22, 2008 3:01 AM

Holy crap, thats a beeeeautiful picture of my future fuck-buddy.

Posted by: dammitjanet at October 22, 2008 8:30 AM

Sabrina,

I had the same reaction. That letter is the funniest damn thing ever and my friend and I still like to say to each other "I hate you, I hate you, I've always hated you . . ." and try to get the Ds on Worlddddddddddd.

Posted by: Sharon at October 22, 2008 12:22 PM

Thank godtopus Dustin heard my soul asking that question over and over again. I thought I was going a crazy waiting for news about Brad Pit.... mmmmmmbradpitt....

Posted by: Wormer at October 22, 2008 3:36 PM